TMI PSA - Men's Health

Seriously - this is too much information.  Way too much.  More than I've offered before, and I'm not shy. Just back away...go  back to what you were doing.  You probably don't want to know...you definitely don't want to know.  This is a post about taking a steering column to your male bits (if you have them, or you have an interest in a set) - and not in a frottering, fetishistic way, but in a hit you in the groin like a baseball bat sort of way.

So one of the interesting things I never thought about while I was in the hospital, or even prior to having an accident, was what might happen to your berries. Of the well known group, twig and berries.  Obviously, you can lose one - or two.  You can get bruising, Etc.  But the reality of what happens if you get a good "jolt" of trauma without any direct damage wasn't something I understood. And, if you do get a good jolt of trauma, say the steering column knocking things around because you're tall and the column is low on your body, well, so much the worse.

First, the swelling.  For me, about 100%.  I didn't use any sort of water displacement to measure.  That's just an educated guess.  Big deal, right?  Swelling isn't so bad.  That's what happens if a sibling kicks you in the goolies before everyone is old enough to know better, right?  What is bad...
1.) Try to sit on a toilet and tuck them where you're not just going to end up peeing on the wall.  A monumental challenge.  And if you do manage it, it's not at all comfortable.  Particularly on a raised seat.  You feel mashed.  That's right.  Mashed potatoes is an appropriate new euphemism for traumatized cohones.
2.) Eventually the swelling goes down.  This is good, but it means all the extra skin from when they were twice as big is left behind.  You turn into some sort of testicles-only snake, shedding skin with the texture of an uncared for catcher's mitt.  I warned you TMI!  I promise, no pictures, despite She Says asking for various trauma images.  Top it all off with the hospital scrubbing you to within an inch of your life, to prevent infection, and you end up with a twofer: trauma, and the elimination of all good microbes on your body.  Women probably understand this much better than men.  But getting the equivalent of a testicular douching is a bad thing.
3.) You have to figure out how to clean that up.  No one wants dry skin in their bed, or on the floor.  We all drop some skin naturally.  But ball flakes? Ew. Ew!  If you have a male dog, I hope this is what they're eliminating when they're licking so it doesn't end up on things.  A thought I was forced to confront by this situation.  Wait...that is not to imply I was eliminating skin flakes by self licking...humans have vacuum cleaners.
4.) Post sloughing, all the skin is like brand new.  The testicles now tuck more easily (see #1), but they're sensitive to getting pushed around and chaffing and you're still subject to the issues left from the scrubbing, so you're forced to push them around a bit to apply appropriate powder per your practice doc.  Powder.  Don't just think you can apply some lotion to avoid dry skin.  A cursory search of the internet will tell you that's one of the stupidest ideas you can pursue if you've killed off your beneficial bacteria.
5.) Never look this topic up on the internet.  Never.  Unless you want to know that you can get athlete's foot of the balls, how thoroughly panicked most men are about it, to the point of unreasonableness (not me, I was just looking for medical advice, which was useful, because I had some options to discuss with my doc), and potentially what it might look like if you click Google images - a check in the pro column for strict safe search.

I'm not sure I have practical advice.  Wear a cup at all times?  Probably unreasonable, but I realized just how important it might be if you play paintball.